ion of Nelly's husband that was to be? Why, for one thing, I imagine, because I never observed that such a very exact appreciation, on the part of any individual, of other people's duties towards himself, coincided with an equally exact perception and performance of his own duties towards other people. "So it ended rather better than it began," continued Nelly; "but, Katy, he was very deeply pained. I am dreadfully afraid that, as he says, I do not understand him, and therefore that I can never make him happy. But he declares, with all my faults, he loves me still; they may be a cross that he needs; at any rate, he can never give me up, and he is sure that it will be for his best good to marry me." In short, Nelly did marry him at the end of the two months, upon a pittance of a salary, but with a liberal allowance, considering his own means, from her Uncle Wardour. With a smile and two tears she departed, and left me to miss her very much, and to ponder somewhat gloomily the question, how many degrees higher in the scale of Christian magnanimity it might be to marry a fellow-creature for one's own "best good," than to try experiments on her, and plague her for one's own" development." The The next four years were almost eventless at Barberry Beach. pleasantest thing, perhaps, that happened in them was, that the twins grew up, and, at the age of eighteen, left school; and that then, when I thought myself in duty bound to offer my resignation, it was unanimously rejected by the family, according to Paul, “in a solemn indignation-meeting, - Miss Dudley in the chair, laid on the table, and glued there." The young ladies took the housekeeping into their four hands, and ruled as harmoniously as they played together on the piano, and soon as skilfully. Mr. and Miss Dudley went with them to the Revere House for a month every winter, that they might go into company with "Cousin Clara" in Boston; and they served as decoy-ducks to bring troops of other charming young people into and about their own home at all other seasons. Of course, as we lived in a world of trial, so we were not without our trial. In Paul's Sophomore year, on the first of April, a mathematical diagram was painted upon the back of a mathematical tutor. The paint-pot was clearly brought home to the door of a classmate of Paul's. The classmate stood in imminent danger of being dealt with accordingly; when Paul "relieved him from suspense by avowing himself the unknown artist. Paul soon after spent, at the suggestion of the Faculty, some time in the country, where, I trust, his meditations were blest to him. At any rate, as his chum deposed to me on his certain knowledge, on the Christmas following the injured tutor received an anonymous present of "broadcloth enough, such as he never saw before in his life, to make him a full suit," together with an agreement in writing "from the courtly Huntington, for value received, to make up the same." Soon after which occurrence the tutor became "so peg-toppy that, if you wound a string round him, you could spin him"; while "Paul went about the college-yard so uncommonly shabby," that the chum would have been ashamed to be seen with him if he "had n't guessed where his clothes went." But the above, if it was the worst, was also the last of Paul's practical jokes. Perhaps, therefore, the crisis did no harm, in the end, to either of the parties concerned. CHAPTER XVIII. As I look back over these pages that I have written, it seems to me that they are monotonous in their stories of the sickness and death of those I love. I cannot help it. Such sicknesses and deaths made a large proportion of the discipline of my earlier life. Heaven grant that I may not yet have them to record of my later life! In regard to the uniformity of its discipline, my case was not, however, singular. Many more times than once, I have seen it happen that one mortal has been subject to one Hope, not always, by any means, drawn upon him by any agency of his own, but unaccountably falling upon him again and again, and on every side, until her work on him was done, or until he had passed beyond our ken. After Nelly's marriage I saw very little of her. She had a standing invitation to Mr. Wardour's; but as her husband had not her uncle's selfrestraint, it could hardly be pleasant to her to bring them often into one another's company. She had a child every year; and every year, on an average, lost one. Every year I made and sent her some little contribution to her nursery wardrobe; and every one was acknowledged by a sweet little grateful note, but always by a short one. Once she wrote, "My husband desires me to save my strength from letterwriting for more important duties." About six years after her marriage, Mr. Wardour had some business in the State of New York, and determined to take her parsonage in his way, and see for himself how she was. ment an she is hardly to be reckoned upon from day to day. Either one, of two or three things that are likely to happen, would carry her off directly." He went up first to Nelly; and I turned into the parlor, where I saw old Mr. Wardour moving restlessly about the room, with the most perturbed expression I ever saw upon his venerable face. He scarcely greeted me. "I did not know of dear Nelly's being here till the moment before I started to come and see her," said I. "How did you find Mr. Blight?” He stopped short in front of me. "I found him a brute!" This from Mr. Wardour! I suppose I started; for he added, “A beast, I repeat! God defend you, my dear, from such a one!" He resumed his walk up and down the room, and actually moaned as he walked. "No mercy on the helpless! No fidelity to such a trust! Poor child! Poor child! How shall I ever answer it to her mother, if I meet her in the other world?" This was all so unlike him, that for the moment I feared for his reason; and I ventured to go up to him and slide my arm into his, he was always so good to me. "Mr. Wardour !" cried I, "don't blame yourself! you always took the kindest care of her. A father could not be tenderer. You could not help it." A fortnight after he set off, I was told in the middle of the forenoon unusual time for such an announcethat Dr. Physick wished to speak to me. I hastened to the door. Katy," said he, "if you can be "Could I, Katy?" said he, with a spared, I will take you down to Mr. trembling lip, turning to look appealWardour's to see Nelly Blight." ingly in my face. "I never liked the "Nelly here! Since when? Is she match. You know I never pretended ill?" 66 "She came the day before yesterday. I am afraid she is very ill. She wants to see you." I excused myself in a moment to Miss Dudley, took my bonnet, shawl, and gloves in my hands, and ran out again and into the chaise. "You will make her better, cannot you?" He shook his head. "The case has been running on too long; it is too complicated; the blood is hopelessly depraved. She is rallying from the fatigue of the journey, and a little revived by change of scene and air; but I did. But they told me she almost broke her heart before, when he left her, and what could I do? I would always have tried to give her a happy home. I didn't want my little girl to leave me. But when she wished to go, I straitened myself in my old age, did, more than once, to keep her, and therefore him, in comfort and plenty." "How glad she must have been to see you!" I "More glad than he was," said Mr. Wardour, striving after a calmer strain. "I found him up in the parlor with some other fellows, red and fat, eating a dinner fit for an alderman, and her looking just ready to die, down with a maid-of-all-work in a hot, close, dark basement kitchen, half lying in a wooden chair tilted back against the wall, seeing that the dishes were served up to please him." There "What did he say! ?" "He said I exaggerated. was n't a drop of anything stronger than Seltzer or Vichy water in either of his own wine-glasses; and he was only making himself all things to all men to the Bishop and some leading members of his congregation, that it was important for him to gain an influence over. I asked him if it was n't important for him to take a little care of his wife. He answered, 'My parish first, then my family.' He said it in his vainglorious way, as if he was used to being admired for saying it!" Mr. Wardour looked as if he would have sneered at that, if he had only known how to sneer. "I never, before that day," he went on, "interfered between man and wife; but I could n't help asking him if Nelly was n't a member of his parish, and if there was any other member of it that he was married to. I asked him, too, if St. Paul did not say, 'He who provideth not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' He said, I misapplied the text utterly. I don't know; he ought to; but there he was tricked out to the merest fopperies of his sect and profession, and she scarcely had clothes for the journey!" Here I was called up stairs; and, seeing that he had in a measure eased his mind, I left him. Nelly was sitting up in her old pleasant chamber, and in her old place in easy-chair, but looking paler in her wrapper than I ever saw her e. The old wistfulness had passed her face. There was that change es expression which is often, if not ays, a sign of sickness unto death, if another, an angel, were looking rough the familiar features. There as an unearthly calm about her. I took her outstretched hand and kissed her forehead. She clasped me in her arms. A sweet-looking elderly woman, who was waiting upon her as I entered, set a stand with a glass of water, a fan, a cologne-bottle, and a hand-bell upon it, at her side, and gently left us together. "Dear Nelly! I have only just heard of your being here. What can I do for you?" It "Nothing, dearest, but come and see me. I wanted only to thank you for what you have done, and to do what I could to repay you. The peace you brought me here went with me to my other home. It never left me in solitude or sickness or sorrow. does not leave me now. But, O Katy, I have thought of you so often, and been so anxious about you! You used to advise me. I am in some ways the most experienced now. I longed so to have a chance to say to you, O Katy, you are disinterested and devoted. Nobody knows that better than I. But you have a high spirit. Ordinary married life would be such a sad trial to you, perhaps a snare ! Katy, do be careful how whom you marry. Of course you can't have everything you might fancy, all together, in a husband. You can't have perfection ever, anywhere in this world. But let it be somebody whom you have known not only long, but well, somebody whom you won't have to be always adapting yourself to, -somebody who is adapted to you already." She paused for breath, exhausted by her own haste and earnestness. "O Nelly, why did we ever let you go?" She smiled like a seraph: "Only because you all thought more of my pleasure than your own, I believe. But, Katy, I did not speak of disappointment, did I? It was a trial to me, to be sure, to be obliged to give up visiting and helping the poor. With all the illnesses that you know I had, and the care of a household besides, I could do very little of that kind; and then I used to think of a text you marked for How could me once, 'The unmarried woman careth I fanned her gently, but did not talk much for fear of fatiguing her. After a little she resumed, with almost an arch look, "That did not sound like what I used to say when I sat here, did it ? " Then more gravely, but very sweetly and softly, she went on at intervals: "I think I was not born for earthly happiness. Some people would tell me, I suppose, that I ought to receive all the sufferings of the last six years as a judgment upon me for craving it as I did. I do not feel them to be so, except that perhaps my constitution never quite recovered from the exhaustion I brought upon myself by the idle pining out of which you rescued me. But our Heavenly Father called me away from that by a very tender and welcome messenger. It was heartily repented of- I hope atoned for - long before my marriage. I was sorry for Mr. Blight's leaving me; but, I think, quite submissive and resigned. No; a mother will not punish her young child if, when she would carry it away from the soap-bubbles with which its brothers and sisters are entertaining themselves, it stops its tears and cries, and only turns its little longing eyes and hands towards the lovely rainbow balls it wants to play with. If she carries the baby back, and lets it see and feel that the beautiful vision is a thing that only vanishes in its grasp, I think she does it in pure love, that her poor little nursling may not go away with its heart aching for a great possible pleasure unenjoyed, but can be put to sleep at the right time, contented and grateful, — -as I shall." Her nurse returned. I rose to go. She did not try to detain me, but said, with a cheerful, loving look, "When shall you come and see me again?" "To-morrow?" "Do," she answered; but before the morrow, one of the "two or three things" happened, and she was "put to sleep at the right time" for her, I cannot doubt; and when I did "come and see her again," she was in her coffin, waiting for the old driver of the same hearse in which we rode together when she rode before. Nelly, I believe that, of those two heart-sick girls, the lot fell to you to be borne into heaven. in triumph, a glorified saint! . . . . ... Mr. Blight was at the funeral, and came to see me afterwards. I liked him better than I expected ever to like him, because, for the time being, he appeared humbled by his grief, even to the point of making no parade of his humiliation; and because for the first time I found, as Nelly seemed to think before, that he really had a heart. CHAPTER XIX. MISS DUDLEY took from me half my sorrow by her sympathizing tenderness, and soon had a new joy to share with me. One still, sunny afternoon, early in the summer, I was soothing myself by a saunter up and down the beautiful old-fashioned garden, with its three straight gravel-walks rimmed with box, flanked by beds teeming with the richest luxuriance of old-fashioned flowers, and parted by lawns studded with fruittrees, when I heard her voice calling my name. I turned and hastened to her. "Katharine," cried she out of breath, smiling through tears, and taking both my hands, "congratulate me, and condole with me! I have gained two nephews, or lost two nieces!" "Who? Who?" cried I. I was very sorry then; but I have lived to see, in that as well as other things, the vanity of human wishes. Not even Bernard Temple could be more saintly than the younger Arden was; but the glory of martyrdom is too sad a glory for us to desire to see either of our household sunbeams quenched in it. "I do not know who else is quite good enough, unless it might be, indeed, Mr. Bernard Temple; but he is a clergyman." "But he is a clergyman!' That is not a highwayman! Is it any objection to a man? O Katharine !" "Not if he can maintain a family," said I doubtfully. on 'Change. Now you shall hear. Bernard can maintain Rose very well; or he should not have her, and I believe would not. He is not a person to take upon himself obligations which he has no means to discharge. Those two Temples are no common young men, as you will see when you have seen a little more of them. They were sons of my brother's favorite Professor at Cambridge; and he has known them nearly all their lives. Almost from the cradle up, it was Bernard's ruling passion to be a clergyman, and Arthur's to be a statesman. Their father encouraged them. Their mother, a shrewd, hard-working, homespun woman, used to say: If you are content to live single, boys, do as you like, - a single man can live very well on much less than half as much as a double, or triple, or quadruple man; but if you mean to be married, I can tell you from experience, a young family needs a good many other things besides speeches and sermons; and if you want, as I should hope you did, to preach fearless sermons, and make honest speeches, remember what poor Richard says, It's hard for an empty bag to stand upright.' They hit upon a compromise, if that can be called a compromise which sacrifices nothing. They went from college into such safe business as they could find, with the settled purpose of securing, if possible, an 'independence,' and of thus securing their independence of action in what they held to be the highest departments of human action. They have proved as fortunate as they were honest and able, and won what makes, with their little patrimony, not wealth, to be sure, but a competence. In the mean time, they have been studying their professions in their leisure time all their lives; and perhaps they will be none the worse fitted to guide their fellow-men in secular and sacred matters, for having known the world by toiling in it, and temptation by withstanding it. You scarcely know Arthur, I believe; but my brother does not consider him inferior to Bernard, and considers scarce |